Tools & Resources

Want to find out what online tools we use and why? Here are our opinions and suggestions.

We use the majority of these every day, so we’re recommending them because of our experience with them and what they offer: which could be saving time, ability to gather data much faster or it actually being much better than the other competing offers out there.

Domain Names

Not exactly a tool, but we all need a domain to run your business from and website hosting for you to be live and function properly.

Read here about domain names and who to register with (our first choice is Namecheap).

Business Website Hosting

If you’re interested in a hosting company for your website then you’ll find this page beneficial and talks about the best business hosting for your WordPress website.

Our top pick at the moment is Siteground. Find out why in our write-up here.

They have servers located in different parts of the globe and their support is quite fast in answering things should you need help.

Online Marketing/Promotion

At OWS we also run a digital marketing agency called Ignite**. If you want to ensure everything is set and forget, and you just want to be concerned with running your business then this is for you. We explain on this page why it’s different to a lot of the alternatives out there and how One Web Street shows you how to do things, whereas Ignite actually implements things every month for your business.

Written Content

Sometimes, you want some written English for your website, blog, social media or even offline promotion in a magazine or newspaper. That’s where Write Stop** comes in. They have a team of educated and professional writers who can take care of any of your needs. Check out what we wrote about them here.

Password Manager

Both of us use a password manager every single day, but that doesn’t mean to say that we agree on which one is best. Nick uses Roboform and Nathan uses Lastpass. That doesn’t mean to say that one is better than the other and neither has issues, because, realistically, they both do.

If you’re on a Mac then it’s going to be Lastpass (although iPads/iPhones run Roboform quite well). If you’re on a PC/Windows machine then Nick uses Roboform.

Check out our write-ups here and here.

VPN (Virtual Private Network)

This is for when you’re on a public network (at a cafe, staying at a hotel or at a convention centre and using their WiFi). Don’t worry too much about this if you’re using your phone’s data (3/4G) as that’s pretty secure.

We have 3 leading VPN providers that we use on a regular basis. Strong VPN comes out on top at the moment, although there are some issues on connectivity if you’re in Southeast Asian countries, so keep that in mind.

Landing Pages

Our main focal point at the moment is Leadpages. It’s a helpful little piece of the internet that integrates well with your WordPress business website. Yes, there are other landing page softwares out there, but we think LP is the best of the bunch.

Find out why here.

Email marketing

It’s important to keep in touch with both your current and prospective clients. One of the easiest is by email. But, you don’t want to be sending mass emails from your Google Apps or Microsoft Sharepoint programs (or even Cpanel!). That’s where Mailchimp, Aweber & Getresponse come in. Read about those here.

Design (Canva)

Hands down one of the best online tools we use here. It’s simple & fast to use, and it just plain works well. Once you’ve got a handle on all of the features, it’s a breeze and you can design something that is pretty decent for your business. Yes, you’re not going to instantly become a designer, but it’s going to look a lot better than paint! Check it out here.

Photos for Online

Real, authentic photos of you and your team will always work best. However, there are times when using a stock photo (not one of those cheesy ones though) works out well. Shutterstock, Deposit Photos & Photo Dune are our three top picks. Read about which one might be best to choose here.

Sharing with your community

Hootsuite & Buffer are our go-to tools for sharing your stories, discoveries and insights with your communities on social media. They both use different interfaces and will suit different types of people. For us, Buffer is a little easier to use.

Video & Screencasts

Camtasia has a Mac & a Windows version so it’s compatible. That doesn’t mean to say that it works well all of the time, but it is one of our main sofware pieces used by the OWS team for taking screencasts and then editing the videos for publication online (YouTube, Vimeo, etc)

Ecommerce

One big part of WordPress is Woo(commerce). For us, it’s been a game changer for a number of years. It works well and has so much versatility. Yes, it was originally made for product ecommerce, but we show you how to adapt things in this tutorial.

For payment, the big mamouth is still PayPal (lots of people trust it still) and for credit/debit card payments Stripe wins every time (especially for companies in the UK where domestic cards have a lower percentage fee).

Storage

When you want to keep your content in a location that isn’t on your device (or you want a backup that works), Dropbox or Google Drive are what we use. Both have their good points and downsides, but are far better than any of the competition out there. We use both.

Above all: Remember that we’ve used all of the tools/resources above. We wouldn’t recommend them to you otherwise. But, keep in mind that if you click on a link on this page it will probably be an affiliate link, which means we’ll earn a small commission should you sign up using that specific link (it won’t cost you any extra though).

**This denotes a brand/website run by the same company behind One Web Street. We want to be straight and upfront about this, as it’s entirely your choice of whether or not to use any of the advice or services we lay out on this (and other) websites.

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